Category: Humor

Humor

Hair. Most people have some, if not on their head, then surely elsewhere, although then it becomes a private matter.

As my hair became more sparse, partly in response to parenthood, which gives even hair follicles suicidal tendencies, I decided to keep mine short. My thinning hair looks less noticeable now. I look just like all the other dads whose hair has fallen out. Life is easier now as well, at least in regard to hair maintenance. I look exactly the same whether freshly showered or just awakened, hungover, and wondering why there are two lipstick-wearing alpacas in my bed, one crookedly chewing on my underwear, and the other smoking a cigarette. Alpacas have a lot of hair, by the way. I was a bit jealous. As a side note, I’m never drinking tequila again.

The boy is nine. The first twitches of self-awareness are itching, crawling around in his mind like the ticks he often brings home from the woods and nearby fields. Fashion sense is beginning to render him senseless. He had decided to grow his hair long in front and on top. Apparently someone famous, of whose existence I was not even aware until told, wears their hair that way, and all the nine year old girls like this famous person.

There was a time, not too long ago, when he was quite taken by Justin Bieber, specifically his hair. I don’t know much about Justin Bieber other than what I have seen on TV, and on the internet. I know he had some trouble walking a straight line.

I found myself trying to coach Justin as I watched the footage, “Aim for the line in the middle, Justin! You can do it!” It’s unknown if he tried to snort the line or not. It was a short clip.

In any case, the boy doesn’t have the right kind of hair for Justin Bieber hair. Like mine, his hair is thick and wavy, and when it grows out a bit, there exists what is known as, “Bushman Phenomenon”. When this happens, the hair lunges at odd angles, as though leaping out, attacking anyone nearby, and perhaps itself. Entire spear and machete battles can be seen being waged amid the dense brush atop one’s head. Onlookers withdraw, stepping back a few feet, without really knowing why. They pull their children closer. It’s a quiet spectacle, one without definition.

Tonight, the boy has reluctantly agreed to get a haircut. I’ve invited the entire defense line of the Philadelphia Eagles to my house to help hold him down when he changes his mind mid-cut. Nine year olds, while not terribly strong, can be difficult to subdue, as they writhe and scream of tyranny, complaining that somehow, their hair hurts. Their one superpower is their vocal ability, a sound blast which can knock satellites out of orbit.

After the screaming subsides and the wayward hair is collected from the floor, I intend to make another boy from it. Perhaps, this one will listen when told not to burp in church, though I have my doubts. I was nine once too. Now, I am forty four, and I still don’t listen.

Dancing with Fireflies and wwwpalfitness both nominated me for a Lobster Award, and because I like them both, I won’t even comment on their misspelling of ‘Lobster’, both having spelled it as ‘Liebster’. WordPress is an inclusive, supportive, and forgiving community. If it weren’t, I’d have been chased out with pointy sticks on my first day here. Thank you both for the nomination, and thank you everyone for enduring my nonsense. Please visit their blogs. They’re good peeps.

Two lobster awards in one day, tho. I’m not sure what to make of that. Perhaps I’ve written something questionable, something that left people feeling a bit red and peevish, or that made them think of boiling me in a pot. That’s entirely possible.

The last time I was awarded a lobster was by my cousin Marcus, who dropped a live one down my shorts. This, of course, was completely unprovoked. I was just minding my own business, like always. He’s in an asylum now, echoes of maniacal laughter haunting the cement-brick hallways. He’s batshit crazy, and the lobster was in therapy for many years following the harrowing experience. The lobster still twitches and shakes when approached. So does Marcus, and so do I.

The honor and distinction of this Lobster Award, as opposed to an irritated one stubbornly clamped onto one’s unmentionables, is that this award is in recognition of something. Tho I haven’t ever actually accomplished anything at all besides surviving my childhood and continuing to not self-terminate long enough to procreate, it seems that these small measures must be worthy of some recognition. Anyone who knew me as a disturbed child might agree that my odds of survival weren’t good. Let it be said that it was all for science, and that the statutes of limitation have likely expired by now anyway. As far as the procreation goes, there was nothing to it. Besides, I was probably drunk. I don’t recall.

I understand that there are some rules to this lobster business. I’m to answer some questions or something. I believe there were ten. maybe fifty. I never follow directions, so I’ll do one.

Why did you first start writing?

I have an active imagination, and that creativity needs to go somewhere so that I don’t end up in jail. As a kid, maybe seven or eight years old, I ‘wrote’ a book. Writing a book for me at that young age meant that I stole it. If that felonious description is too strong, then it’s still fair to say that I borrowed heavily. That said, I did embellish, adding color, plot twists, and developing characters, and I learned from the experience; I was writing.

I began writing poetry as a teen and continued into my early twenties. Many of my poems at the time accompanied my art, drawings and small sculptures. In my mid twenties, I wrote a homeric-length epic poem about the sadness of man and then I didn’t write again for another twenty plus years. Now, I’m back. Writing is a part if who I am, perhaps the largest part. I’ve been writing again for a couple of years, and the most rewarding part of it has been encouraging or inspiring others to share themselves. We’ve all got something to say, in a way that only we can say it.

In seriousness, the Liebster Award is intended to recognize up and coming blogs, and those which deserve to be be seen by more people. I’m not sure I agree with that last bit of it. As mentioned, everyone’s voice matters, none above another. Still, I’ll nominate a few other bloggers, in the spirit of brotherhood, sisterhood, of sharing, and of discovering.

There was a time when I could drink. I could really put them down. There was a time when I could do a flip too. I might even have been able to do a flip while drinking, and it’s quite possible that I have, but if I have, I don’t recall because of the aforementioned drinking.

Everything changes though, we mellow, the liquor now replaced by decaf coffee, the flips of youth devolving into the couch-flops of early middle-age, albeit beautiful ones. At least, I’d like to think so.

I shouldn’t have done it. I was out of practice and my body was no longer accustomed to such things. I had a beer, one of the tall ones that come in a tall can at the local wings place. She made me do it. Yes, that’s why. And then, after the beer was emptied down to the last tinny drops, I had another.

It was because of the hot wings. Yes, that’s why. I was fairly certain that my mouth was on fire, even asking her to pour some of her beer in there, just in case, and in the interest of the safety of the other patrons. The bar might burn down. People with families might die if she didn’t comply. Of course, I couldn’t speak properly with my mouth on fire, so after some pantomime with wing-sauce fingers pointed at my mouth, I just grabbed the can when she dropped her head into her hands and drank some of her beer too.

When she excused herself to go to the ladies room, I drank the rest of it, and then looked out the window pretending not to know what had happened, which is to say I looked like I usually do.

When she returned, there were questions. It seems there are always questions demanding answers. My tongue, swollen and burnt, prevented me from answering intelligently, so I wrote letters in the air, spelling out the word, “A L I E N S.”

Some women are never satisfied with the first answer given, and then each question becomes ten questions, each of those spawning ten more, like a question-hydra wearing a skirt and heels. Clearly she wasn’t understanding that travel-parched aliens had landed in the parking lot and had drank her entire beer, and that in their galaxy-crossing thirst had also dispatched the other beer which the bartender had brought while she was in the the ladies room. I also had to order a few more beers for them. They looked all green and wrinkly, the poor bastards.

She, seemingly unable to grasp this simple concept of beer-drinking aliens, continued staring at me with her hydra head. She must have been drunk. I had to provide a simpler explanation.

Some women are never satisfied with the second answer given either. Things can evaporate. It was possible, even bordering on plausible. Entire lakes have evaporated. Jesus parted a sea once. Things happen, sometimes even miracles.

While explaining with bar-napkin diagrams how evaporation works, and that if she held her beer glass out for long enough, if conditions were right, that it might actually rain beer back into her glass, it started. Not the prophesied beer-rain, but hiccups. Horrible diaphragm-lacerating, esophagus-rupturing hiccups.

Each one sounded like a dragon from hell crossed with a pterodactyl. Each was louder than the last, and they were building in crescendo. Women went running out the door, breaking heels, dropping purses and cell phones. Men ducked under the bar and cowered beneath the gum-bottom tables. Some pushed their wives or girlfriends in front of them and toward the hellish squawking sounds.

I then had twelve women standing in front of me, mascara smeared, and irritated. I opened my mouth to apologize and then the last one came out, as loud as all the others combined. The women all went down like bowling pins, laying in a tangle of legs and polyester hems. The windows had blown out, and the smoke-tinged curtains were waving in tatters like surrender flags. Then the fire sprinklers came on.

I hadn’t the nerve to call or write, even though none of it was my fault, at all, but I did see her driving around town one time since.

I shouted, “Hey baby! How you been? I’ve missed ya!”

She said, “Hey..” smiling. Then she parked the car and walked over, still smiling, pulled a tall beer in a tall can from her purse, still smiling, and poured it on my head.

Paul (aka wwwpalfitness) nominated me for the Lovely Blog Award, and I’ve been feeling lovely ever since. Paul is generally pretty awesome, writes some cool poems, and he retweets my rather questionable poems on twitter sometimes. Thanks Paul! 🙂 You guys should follow him now. Really. Right now. Then you won’t have to read this drivel.

One Lovely Blog Award

The rules are as follows:

Thank the person that nominated you and provide a link to their blog.
List the rules.
Display the award on your post of the award.
List seven facts about yourself.
Nominate 15 bloggers for this award and comment on one of their posts to let them know you have nominated them.

Stuff about me.

1. I work in insurance. Ack. But not forever. I’ll probably do something to get myself fired sooner or later. Then I can spend my newfound free time writing sad country western songs.

2. I’m a black belt in Kenpo and teach karate a few times a week at my karate school. I’ve been throwing kicks for about 30 years, on and off. Yes, I’m an old fart. Sorta. I’m 46. And I wear those sock-garter thingees too. They’re itchy.

3. I’m very conscious of my use of the word “I” in my writing. Already, in writing this, I’m quite certain that I’ve used the word “I” or some variation of its self-centered flatulence at least a few thousand times. I’ll count them later, wearing a clothespin on my nose. Then I’ll flog myself ten times for for each abuse, replace each one with the word “fuckhead”, and then listen to the My Little Pony theme song until I’m fully repentant. Two minutes should do.

4. I have two black dogs and a (soon to be) 11 year old son. The boy doesn’t yet heel properly, but he’s coming along. The shock collar helps, tho he often complains that none of his friends have to wear one.

5. I wish this was number seven already. I hate talking about myself. That’s what poetry is for.

6. I do not eat any weird gourmet stuff. I will not, and you can’t make me. Not even if you wear something revealing and crack a black whip on my ass.

7. My name is Eric. That might be posted around here somewhere. I go by brazenescape because it’s the screen name I used when I started writing again a couple of years ago.

The rules of this ‘suggest’ that I nominate FIFTEEN other people for this. Yowsa. Not happening. I don’t even know fifteen people yet. I’ll do just three at this early, dribble-chin stage of this blog’s infancy..

This time last year, I had no costume to wear to the party. I found a spare toilet seat I had laying around in the garage, wondering for a moment why I would have such an item kept as a spare, but just for a moment, and then unwrapped its plastic and put it on. The seat rested on my shoulders with my head poking out of the hole. A dark stocking with knots tied in it graced my cranium, and I wrote, ‘out of order’ on the front of a white shirt made to look like a sign.

All evening, glisten-bosom women in purple-sparkle masks and snug, black dresses called me, ‘shithead’, and they brought me more drinks.